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After lengthy discussions between Riot Games and US government, League of Legends players now deemed professional athletes, can be awarded visas.

The United States government now recognizes League of Legendsplayers as professional athletes and awards visas for them to come to the country to play.

Riot Games eSports manager Nick Allen told GameSpot in a new video interview (below) that the “groundbreaking” decision came about after much back-and-forth between the developer and the government.

“So the United States government recognizes League of Legends pro players as professional athletes and award visas to essentially work in the United States under that title,” Allen said. “This is groundbreaking for eSports; now we can start looking at international players when they come over. It’s a much easier process because they’re actually recognized by the government. This is a huge thing.”

“This was a lengthy process; we had a lot of people fighting for this. It wasn’t something that happened overnight,” Allen continued.

He further explained that Riot went back and forth with the government multiple times before enough evidence was provided to prove that the game is a legitimate sport.

With League of Legends becoming increasinly popular, and the community in turn getting larger and larger, I began to wonder; Just what will the community miss?

Now I hate to sound like an old man or anything similar, but just the other day I was talking to a friend and I brought up Sunfire Shaco in a discussion; and he couldn’t believe me. A couple hilarious videos later, he was curious to what else he missed. And so i give you guys a list of old things that may bring back some good (or bad) memories.

In no particular order:

Blue Pill

Inervating Locket

Wards weren’t spell immune

Wards could be used to block collisions (Ae: Rammus’ Powerball would be stopped by it)

Xinzhao and LeBlanc were considered extremely overpowered

Ashe was a guaranteed pick or ban

No tenacity

Pre-Nerf Mordekasier

Stacking Sunfire Capes

Stacking Frozen Mallets

No Wriggles Lantern

Dragon and Baron were vulnerable to CC. (Ae: Blitz Grab)

AP Shaco’s old Boxes

Katarina’s extragold per kill

Twisted Fate’s Gate as a normal ability

TF and Pantheon’s Global Ults

Sunfire Capes working whilst Invisible (Sunfire Eve)

Evelynn used to have a stun out of invisibility.

Shen was considered trash pre-buff

Ezreal was laughable

Malphite was considered weak

The old shop keeper

Tryndamere having no resources

Blind Monk considered a myth

Riot Nasus

Shureylia and Randuin

AP Sion FotM

Old Jungle

Old Masteries

ADs going solo mid

Jarvan IV considered OP

Lifesteal being Higher

No movement speed cut off

The original 3 second pounce on Nidalee without a flat CD

Dunkmaster Yi

Phantom Dancers gave dodge

Dodge Existed

Dodge could dodge towers

Zhonya’s Ring

5 Turret Heimdinger

Release Vayne

Blocking Lanes with Heimdinger

Team Killing with Heimdinger

Ezreal’s W Healed

Old Soraka

Rammus Permabanned

Karthus and Kogmaw not counting being dead until after thier passives ended

The 6 Most Annoying League of Legends Players

28 May, 2013

League of Legends is a free online action real time strategy game that is currently my largest addiction. In the game, you have the option of forming a team before entering the fray with five of your closest friends. If, like me, you have no friends, then your other option is the solo-queue, a Russian Roulette of sorts in which you are randomly paired with four complete strangers. My time in both group and solo queue has revealed that there are several archetypes of annoying LoL players that cannot be denied.

The Over-Pingers

Shit is going down. Either your cohorts are walking into some devious trap set by the opposing team or you just scored an ace and it’s time to push. For times like these, Riot encoded into their fine game a feature that allows you to “ping” a certain area of the map to warn others to either advance or retreat. Of course, what happens when you try to give something nice to anonymous man-children on the Internet? They abuse the fuck out of it.

I don’t know if he wants me to go to Baron or if he’s having a seizure

Listen, buddy, one and done. That’s your new rule. You clicking two dozen times on the same spot in case I missed the first ten Navi-level chimes does not benefit anyone in any way. Hell, half of the time when you’re trying to tell me to retreat I flip a mental coin to see if I should even bother listening to you.

Your excessive clicking is not benefiting the team. If anything, you’re just making your partners hate you. Take your finger away from the hot key and breathe. It’s all going to be okay.

The General Custers

Your team is getting crushed. Hard. Excuses aside, everyone including yourself is getting spanked in every fight you come across. The opposing team has out-farmed you, they’re well fed, and they just took out all three of your inhibitors in a glorious strike while you watched through a monochrome haze waiting to rez. The game is over. To save yourself and others the precious moments of life that you would rather fetter away on a fresh game, you throw up the /surrender. You assume you’ll see the green “yes”s fill up the five slotted bar almost instantaneously, but you don’t.

Two votes in, someone has the audacity to opt for “no”. And then, somehow, his blind tenacity causes that one other precious voter to take up his cause. Two votes against and you’re stuck in the game for an another miserable ten minutes. Some people just don’t know when to quit.

These Custers normally fall into two subcategories. The first is the savior. He’s the only one on your team who has done even remotely decently. Any fight that he is not involved in results in another triple-kill, the villains walking away nearly unscathed. In his delusional mind he just needs to initiate properly. He could take the entire team out if only these n00bs would know how to properly tank and let him work his magic.

The second, more common iteration is the idiot. This guy just doesn’t know when to quit because he is somehow oblivious to how much time he is wasting. With his score in the general range of 2/19/4, he is honestly having a good time and just doesn’t want the fun to end no matter how convenient it is to others.

I’ll admit up front that I have been this guy numerous times. I’m sure in every Leaguer’s history there have been one or two games where you just refuse to give up. No matter how many times your partners /surrender you are first to voice your strong opinion of /nosurrender.

“We still have a chance” you spout into the chat log. “We just need to farm up the 5,000g difference between us and our rivals, ace the team that has been crushing us 5v4 for the last 30 minutes, take a quick jaunt over to Baron and then– with our newly acquired buffs– rush to take out all nine of their towers in what will be known as the most glorious comeback in the history of LoL!”

I am all for fighting til the last hit, but it’s best for everyone if you learn the early signs of defeat. If you’re down to your inhibs and they still have every single turret? The game is probably over. Best to just surrender and try harder the next game. You aren’t making any friends in this lost cause.

Internet Tough Guys

I find that League of Legends boasts its own special brand of anonymous jackass. Not people pretending to be Russian mobsters or delusional, self-proclaimed MMA fighters that “you haven’t heard of yet, but just wait bro,” who used to train everyday with Chuck Lidell, but perhaps just as bad.

It always starts the same, someone on the other team has obtained an obvious advantage in their lane. They’ve gotten a few kills early on and their gold boost has given them a bit of an item advantage. Sure enough, they take out that one still-squishy champ who had no place being where he/she was and in their moment of victory they /all chat something akin to “THAT’S RIGHT! RUN, NOOBS! FEAR ME!”

Really, guy? Of all places to be a total bad ass your choice is to spout intimidations via League of Legends? Do you not have anything else going on in your life?

The bottom line here is that no is impressed. We’re not impressed by your “amazing” 4/0/2 kill streak and when you start typing out slightly adorable insults most people just end up feeling bad for you.

Maybe if I get a penta-kill dad will forgive me for not signing up for football.

I’m not denying that to be really good at LoL takes time and skill. Furthermore, I loves me some proper trash talking. However, is this game really the thing to be boasting about? Consistently? I fear that too many of these kids are gloating without the self-aware sarcasm that most rational adults maintain. The thought makes me a bit sad.

The Insta-boss

You just joined the queue and that guy is already at it. “Don’t pick twitch. We need a tank. Someone pick tank. Too much AP. You two switch, I’m going to instalock Karthus.” As the ticker slowly counts down to the match start a single thought crosses my mind.

The game starts and your new boss is at it again. “Mundo, lux bot. Pantheon you go top. I got mid. CALL MIAS EVERYONE.” As far as he is concerned, this guy owns you for the next thirty minutes. You are nothing more than his NPCs. He’ll be telling you what spells to pick at what levels. He’s critiquing your build during his time spent dead. He’s giving you orders on how every team fight should be initiated.

Sometimes it’s easier to just give in. Listen to the guy. Give him the satisfaction of being the leader for a few fleeting moments. Most of the time, though, I choose to blatantly ignore every command he gives. Nobody puts baby in the corner.

LoL is about teamwork. No one person can win a match without the help of their teammates (unless they’re Garen). You may have more experience than others and I’m not averse to you sharing wisdom. That being said, no one likes a dictator. Once you enter that solo queue you are joining a 30 minute democracy. Everyone deserves to be heard no matter what their experience level. No one is going to become a peon of some dude they just met on the Internet.

The Mythological Feeder and Word-of-the-Day Insulters

While I find the latter of this dual-category much more annoying, I feel that I need to address the former in the name of context.

Feeding, to my knowledge, is a LoL specific term that represents a teammate who is intentionally dying at the hands of the enemy to give your opponents an advantage. A true-blue gesture of trollism, this person enjoys the idea of infuriating teammates one thousand times more than he or she enjoys actually winning at the game. Is it funny? Yes. While never partaking in the activity myself, I can understand the humor behind it. The only problem? I don’t think feeders really exist.

I don’t think I’ve ever seen a real “feeder” in my time playing League of Legends. Of course, that doesn’t stop every other person playing the game from shouting this idiom every chance they get.

I think that somewhere around nine out of ten people who get accused of “feeding” are just having a bad game. The term has evolved from labeling a trollish saboteur to someone who just dies a lot. Nevertheless, by the end of the game some ignorant preteen sends out his request: “Guys, report Caitlyn for feeding.”

Some people just don’t match up to your standards. This is exponentially true when you’re getting these people picked out of a virtual hat in a free video game. If I ever meet a honest-to-goodness feeder, I will probably try to image capture undeniable proof, as if I had found a unicorn or the Loche Ness monster. In the mean time, all you can do is quietly ignore those who refuse to save terminology for its proper use.

tl;dr Stop reporting me for feeding.

The Projectionist

The projectionist is another dual-spec douche of the LoL community. His base function is to complain about anything and everything that is happening during a match that he is losing. The common trait being that none of what is occurring is his fault. He normal reveals himself in one of two forms.

The first is the team hater. Sure everyone has died seven or eight times and no one has gotten more than two kills, but it can all be traced back to top feeding their champs. If you were to look at things subjectively, of course, you would notice that the accuser most likely died just as much as those poor souls in top in the same time span. That’s just a simple fact he chooses to ignore. Another funny consistency I’ve noticed is that these guys are almost always mid, and they’re also almost always Ashe.

I don’t know what it is about this character, but she is like a sponge for shit heads.

The second, more delusional and therefore funnier iteration of the Projectionist is the never-give-up trash talker. Your team just dunked your foes. They’re down to inhibitors and the score is somewhere around 27-10 in your favor. Suddenly, this beacon of hate shows himself in /all chat. “Whatever, man. You guys aren’t even good.”

Not even good? Did you see the score? Normally at this point Mr. Hater makes a point to revert back to his first form, blaming his teammates for letting you walk all over them. But before long her returns focus to your team. “You’re not even building right.” Seems to be working out pretty well for me. “I could totally take any of you 1v1.” Real shame it’s a 5v5 game, isn’t it? The poor boy is in denial. It’d be funny if it weren’t so sad.

We all know that no matter what, haters gon’ hate. I suppose this entire article is just me hating in my own special way. All I want is for everyone to get along with one another.

I’ve had solo queue games where everyone is random and anonymous yet we all had a really fun time. I’m talking stuck-out-tongue emoticons and kind compliments to the opponent for a well orchestrated kill. This game can be a pleasant experience for everyone. You just have to let it be.

And stop clicking so much with the fucking pings. I SEE THAT THEY’RE IN THE BUSHES. CHRIST. ONE AND DONE.

Fun League of Legends Facts Part 2

There are a lot of things we can enjoy about League of Legends, and playing matches isn’t the only one. As with all games, there is a huge array of funny little facts floating around the gameplay, community and the development process. This series of articles will try to round up those and share it with the in2LOL readers.

Clash of Fates

When League of Legends was first announced by Riot Games, it was called League of Legends: Clash of Fates. It seems that for some reason the subtitle was dropped off before the release. League of Legends was in development since 2006. It was announced for the first time on October 7th, 2008 and was finally launched on October 27th, 2009 with a total roster of 40 champions available to the players to play with. Twisted Fate was one of the first six characters designed, along with Singed, Annie, Sivir, Sion and Lee Sin.

The Blind Monk

We already mentioned Lee Sin as one of the first champions that was designed by the Riot development team, but it took a long time for the blind monk to join the ranks of champions on the Fields of Justice. Lee Sin was initially scrapped by the game developers but was eventually brought back, thanks to the support of the League of Legends community. His name is a homophone of the word “listen”, which fits to his character perfectly. His self-immolation mentioned in the character lore section is a reference to the real life monk, Thich Quang Duc, who publicly set himself on fire as an act of protest against the persecution of Buddhism in South Vietnam. Lee Sin was finally released on April 1st, 2011, and Riot used this opportunity to make a little April-Fool’s joke with his champion spotlight video.

Enter the Ninja!

League of Legends has its own ninja order called Kinkou. So far there have been three champions from the order that have joined the ranks of the League’s champions – Shen, the leader of the order and two members of the shadow warrior triumvirate: Akali and Kennen. All three champions share a specific buff in the game which says “This unit is a flippin’ Ninja!” How cool is that? Recently, we had another ninja added to the game in the form of Zed, Shen’s greatest rival and a former member of the Kinkou clan. He is a flippin’ ninja too!

Rammus, The Strong Silent Type

Our favorite ‘Armordillo’ seems to be the only champion without a joke or a taunt in the English client. The interesting fact is that in the French, German, Spanish and Polish versions of the client Rammus has a whole set of dialogues that you can trigger.

A Miss-fortunate Turn of Events

If you read the character lore for Miss Fortune, you may have noticed that her real name is Sarah Fortune. Riot decided to go with the name Miss Fortune in order to resemble the word “misfortune” as a nod to an old sailor myth that women on ships were bad luck.

Karthus, the Bare-boned

Karthus has a different splash art for the Chinese LoL client. This may have something to do with the strict laws imposed by the Chinese government that ban out anything from the games that may be subversive, scary or culturally inappropriate. Depiction of bare bones seems to be offensive in the eyes of the Chinese authorities, thus Karthus had to receive a make-over in order to suit the needs of that particular market. The Chinese Karthus splash art still looks awesome though…

Nunu, the Yeti Rider

There is a common misconception made by players who address both the boy and the yeti he rides on as ‘Nunu’. The big yeti is actually called Willump. ‘Nunu’ is also the name of one of the dogs owned by a developer that works at Riot games. He also uses that nickname for his wife…ooookay…

And here we conclude this week’s edition of ‘Fun Facts in League of Legends’. Be sure to join us next week for more interesting, less known LoL facts and Easter eggs.